


Weather the Storm

by abrasivelysilentnoisemaker



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Ghost Noah Czerny, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Late Night Conversations, Noah Czerny is a Little Shit, POV Richard Gansey III, Richard Gansey III is a Good Friend, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrasivelysilentnoisemaker/pseuds/abrasivelysilentnoisemaker
Summary: In which it storms, Ronan wants to talk about his feelings but doesn't, and Gansey ponders.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Noah Czerny
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Weather the Storm

Rain drums down on Monmouth’s roof, which, if Gansey thinks about it, matches the tone of the night as he watches Ronan pace--storm, really--the length of the room and back again. Gansey himself perches idly on the edge of his bed, leg tucked neatly under the other, eyes tracking the movement of the other boy, the hunch of his shoulders when he turns, the curve of his scowl, the crease between his eyebrows. Truly, he was just as thunderous as the storm outside. They’ve been here before. They’re here now. They’ll be here again. Beginning, middle, end. 

He isn’t thinking of the rain, though, or beginnings and endings and all the in-betweens. Instead, he wonders why Ronan, built on oft unruly actions and not words, had demanded he _stop writing love letters to dead kings_ because he _needed to fucking talk, okay?_. It had been nearly ten minutes since then and Ronan had yet to tell him anything, often starting to say something only to bite it back down with a frustrated noise. Quite frankly, Gansey would like to be trying to sleep again, considering the late hour, but as Ronan rarely (never) asks for things like this, he figures he can put sleep off a little longer. 

After a few more minutes of nothing, though, Gansey sighs. Ronan flashes him a look, almost hawkish in nature, and stops, curling his hands into fists. He opens his mouth, once, twice, and Gansey thinks that maybe, maybe, he’s about to learn what’s ailing his friend. But, alas, Ronan, king of showing rather than telling, snaps his jaw shut yet again and resumes his march. The thought crosses Gansey’s mind that he’s going to wear a hole in the floor; he tells him as such and earns a flippant response in the form of Ronan’s middle finger. 

“Why,” Gansey says amicably, leaning back on his hands, “do I get the feeling I’m not going to like whatever it is you’re going to tell me?” 

A disgruntled noise bubbles out of Ronan, and Gansey’s chest suddenly aches at the way Ronan’s shoulders drop, the way he flings his arms out. Helpless. “I dunno, man, experience?” 

“Am I right?” Gansey leans forward again, frowning himself now. Worry stirs somewhere in his sternum, not for the first time and certainly not the last. Still, it doesn’t sit well with him. “Ronan, what’s going on?”

“Fuck, I don’t know.” Ronan scrubs a hand at his face, and it hits Gansey just how tired he looks--no, he looks beyond tired, he looks like a dead man walking. Almost like he’s being held up by taut strings until exhaustion eventually snips them away. Something with which Gansey is more than familiar.

Suddenly he can’t stand watching him pace like he’s in a cage anymore. He pushes his journal away from where it lay on the bed next to him. “Sit.” His voice comes out a little rougher than he meant. He cringes internally. 

“What?” Ronan’s stopped to look at him, eyes narrowed, and Gansey refuses to recoil. He’s used to it by now.

“Sit,” he says again, gentler, and pats the mattress next to him. Ronan just stares at him another moment before snarling and throwing himself onto the bed beside Gansey. Gansey can’t help but huff a quiet laugh at the petulant look on his face. It’s so...Ronan. He can almost see what he was before...everything. The thought sobers him up. “Ronan.” 

“What, Dad?” Ronan bites out. His voice cracks on the second word and so does Gansey’s heart. The look on Ronan’s face dares him to say something. He doesn’t. 

He waits. 

Ronan's eyes skitter away. “Wanna go for a drive?” he mumbles, almost hopeful. By now, there isn’t much of that left, only anger. Hurt. Grief. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Gansey says. Next to him, Ronan sags, sighs, but doesn’t fight it. Gansey halfway wonders how much fight is left in him. It’s not a warming thought. Far from it. “If the storm lets up soon,” he adds, “and we’re still awake, we can.” 

The ghost of a smirk breaks on Ronan’s face then. “When are we not awake, Dick?” He’s looking at him again, icy eyes softened only by the dark smudges printed underneath, and God, Gansey wishes, again not for the first time, that he could do something. 

He can’t do anything for this except hope. He doesn’t want to see his friend crash and burn in the wake of the ghosts that haunt him.

Gansey pulls his other leg up onto the bed. “You said you wanted to talk.”

Ronan scoffs. “We’re talking now, aren’t we?” His smirk grows into a full-blown sneer, but Gansey knows there’s no real venom behind it. Not tonight, at least. 

“We are,” Gansey agrees, pauses. Wonders how far he can push on this ledge they often find themselves on, either tumbling into overheated emotions or reaching the other side, less safe and more tentative. “But are less than existent sleeping habits really what you wanted to talk about?”

Groaning loudly, Ronan falls back so he’s sprawled across most of the bed. Fidgety hands pick at leather bands dangling from marred wrists. “No. I don’t know. Fuck, I guess not.” He brings his wrist up to chomp at the bracelets. “The fuck would I even talk about?” 

An interesting question, considering Ronan's the one who came to _him_. “Whatever you want.” Gansey picks up his journal and places it on the floor next to the bed before laying next to Ronan, shoulder to shoulder. Neither of them talk for a moment, just listening to the rain above them, around them. A bubble around the haven that they’ve made of Monmouth. It’d be peaceful, almost enough to lull Gansey to long-awaited sleep, if it weren’t for the anxious twitching next to him. He nudges him with his elbow. “Use your words.”

Ronan barks out a laugh. Rough around the edges. Sharp enough to cut. To hurt. To bury. A grave. Gansey’s stomach plummets. “Okay. Yeah. Fuck it. Sure.” An inhale, deep before a dive. “Squash one--”

Gansey wants to shove him off the bed. Instead, he snatches one of his pillows and whacks him with it. “Oh, come on, Lynch!” Next to him, Ronan is positively howling with laughter, curled away from the pillow onslaught. Gansey can’t help but to crack a grin himself. Something’s shifted. Whatever plagued Ronan tonight lay forgotten.

A pocket of cold is the only warning they get that Noah’s arrived and then he’s _there_ , crawling up on the other side of Ronan. Never one to miss out on the fun, their Noah. “You guys are noisy. I can’t sleep.” 

“You don’t even need to sleep, you little shit,” Ronan says, and then he yelps. Noah had slid his hands under his sleep shirt to ghost against skin. Noah’s face is carefully blank, but there’s a twinkle in those blue eyes that they haven’t seen in a long time. He’s more...more than he has been in a long time. Gansey laughs obnoxiously then, something just short of relief rushing through him. Ronan rolls away from Noah, out of reach, and by default ends up nearly on top of Gansey. They’re all laughing now, loud, raucous, unbelievably alive even with one of them being, well, not. 

It eases a knot in Gansey’s heart that he didn’t know was there until it wasn’t. After all that had happened, all the beginnings and middles and endings and beginnings again, for once it seemed the only storm that remained was the one outdoors. He watches Ronan and Noah, Noah and Ronan, as they continue scuffling on the other side of the bed. If it were any other night, perhaps he would feel outside of it all. An interloper. But tonight the storm is outside and not in, and he finds himself not minding very much at all. As though he can read his thoughts, Noah reaches over and reels Gansey back into the revelry. 

It isn’t until later, once Ronan is finally, finally, snoring softly on the pillow next to him and Noah’s vanished and the rain has lulled, that Gansey recollects that Ronan had wanted to tell him something. An unfinished conversation to be ended later, perhaps, or begun again. Maybe the moment’s passed for good. A solemn thought. But for now, Gansey’s content, and it doesn’t take long for him to follow Ronan into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i'd love to hear what you think ronan wanted to talk about 
> 
> this has been sitting on my computer since march, oops. also started this right after finishing the series for the first time, so if it's ooc, double oops. sorry if there are any mistakes, editing on no sleep, you know the drill. you can find me over [here](https://krumbaphant.tumblr.com)


End file.
